Recovery (Hung Series)
by Aconitum-Napellus
Summary: The final part of the Hung series, bringing Illya up to a point of recovery from his double shoulder dislocation. (Slash, rated 18.)


The water of the pool is so blue it looks like a cliché. The sun strikes through the ripples to make little patches of brightness and shadow that waver over the clean tiles forming the sides and bottom, and through the water a body is cutting, skin pink-gold and blood-flushed with exertion, hair a flash of gold and wet-brown, eyes almost the same colour as the water. It is a slow movement, a slow breaststroke, as if the water is more dense than usual and gravity stronger than it should be. When Illya reaches the other end of the pool he is breathing hard. If his face weren't wet with pool water it would be wet with sweat.

'A whole two lengths,' he says, turning over onto his back and floating. Triumph is mixed rather confusedly with disappointment in his voice.

'It's a whole length more than you did yesterday,' Napoleon tells him.

He moves closer to Illya in the warm water and grabs a wide and flexible float from the side of the pool, and slips it under his back. It curls up on either side of him, giving his arms support too.

'Just a little help,' he says.

'I'm tired,' Illya replies, just floating there, eyes unfocussed on the clear sky above.

'Sore?' Napoleon asks.

'Extremely,' Illya says.

He just lies there, letting the float hold him, drifting a very little as the water stirs under the breeze and the movement of Napoleon's body. The sun shines down warmly and a patch on his chest begins to dry, and Napoleon touches a hand lightly to the hair that is starting to fluff up there, stirring it with a wet finger. The hair lies in a little golden-brown sprinkle across his pectoral muscles, around the darkness of his areolae, and comes together in a narrow trail which reaches down to swirl about his navel, and then continues right under the tight, dark waistband of his trunks. It is all Napoleon can do not to follow that tantalising trail all the way down with his finger, under that slick elastic fabric, to find what lies beneath.

'The counsellor will be here in ten minutes,' Illya reminds him, still looking up at the sky and drifting under the sun.

Napoleon clenches his hand and dips it back into the water, which is cool after the heat of the air.

'How do you manage to read my mind so precisely?' he asks in a slightly disgruntled tone.

'I know you,' Illya says. 'I have known you for a long time.'

'Ah,' Napoleon replies.

Illya is right, of course. It was exactly what he was thinking, and he's growing a little hard in his own form-fitting trunks, and it wouldn't do to be in that state when he has to get out of the pool and greet the counsellor. He's probably a Freudian, and on the look-out for anything subtle, let alone anything as blatant as that.

'Well, you'd better get out and dry off,' he says. 'You can't exactly meet the counsellor dripping.'

'I'm not sure I need to meet the counsellor at all,' Illya says, and Napoleon tuts.

'You know they're going to carry on until you're absolutely on target in every area,' he says. 'You won't get back on duty unless you are.'

Illya rolls off the float and stands up in the water, and eyes the pool ladder balefully.

'I won't get back on duty without arms that work, either,' he says.

'Well, we're working on that,' Napoleon tells him. 'Come on. You know you like the hoist really.'

Illya hates the hoist and grumbles every time. He can get into the pool all right, but it's beyond him to haul himself up that vertical ladder without being able to put any strength through his arms, and since the hoist is there, Napoleon and the physiotherapist insist he uses it. There's no point in wrenching his shoulders. Napoleon only has to say that aloud to see Illya blanch, and then he seats himself meekly in the hoist and lets Napoleon winch him out. So this time he lets Napoleon get him into the seat and sits there in silence as he is lifted, dripping, out of the water and onto the paved flatness beside the pool.

He reaches for his towel, and picks it up as if it is made of lead.

'Let me help you with that,' Napoleon offers, and he takes it from Illya and starts to buff the water from his body. 'Your arms are tired. There's no point in doing more than you need to.'

It's obvious how tired he is because he doesn't argue. He stands on the paving while Napoleon buffs the water from him, and then lets the sun do the rest of the work. By that time Napoleon is almost dry himself, and it only takes a few pats of the towel to finish off.

'While you're with the counsellor I'll run out and grab some groceries,' Napoleon says, 'if you think you'll be all right without me. Any desires for dinner? Soufflé, perhaps?'

Illya smiles at his arch tone. 'Not soufflé,' he replies. 'Yes, of course I'll be all right.'

'You won't get back in the pool if I'm not back by the time the counsellor goes?'

'I won't get in the pool,' Illya promises, and Napoleon thinks he can believe him. Illya can be reckless, but not stupid.

'Maybe have a sleep,' Napoleon suggests.

'I can look after myself, Napoleon,' Illya replies, and now he's sounding a little more impatient.

'I know you can,' Napoleon says, and he leans in to kiss Illya just behind the ear, grateful that this house is way out in the country, a little island in an ocean of trees, and there's no one to see.

'Go and get the shopping,' Illya tells him, but he smiles at the kiss. 'I can dress myself now, you know.'

'I know,' Napoleon says. He fumbles a little with zips and buttons and laces, but he can dress himself. He's been helping Illya dress and undress for weeks, and it's odd getting used to the new shift in the dynamic between them, back towards what used to be normal.

'Let's go inside,' Illya says, touching a hand to his back, but not pushing. 'I need to be dressed for the counsellor even if you want to go shopping in your speedo.'

Napoleon notes the stiffness and lack of strength in the gesture, but he doesn't say anything. He waves Illya gallantly before him, and follows him into the house.

((O))

He feels like one half of a regular married couple as he walks around the little supermarket in the local town, dropping bread into his trolley, putting eggs in rather more carefully, nestling potatoes at the end where they won't roll on anything else. The town is over twelve miles from the remote house they are occupying, an U.N.C.L.E. safe house built entirely for the purpose of housing recovering agents. It's a good little house, all on one level for convalescents in need of a wheelchair, with rails in the bathroom and that hoist in the pool, and a whirlpool bath, too. Secluded and safe. It's just what Illya needs. It will be a little odd, he thinks, to get back to regular duties. He's been out on some missions, once Illya was recovered enough to attend to basic hygiene and food preparation, but nothing long-lasting or far distant. Now his mission is to stay with Illya at the safe house, to be his protector and carer again. And then?

He wishes he knew what was going to happen. The physiotherapists and doctors seem positive. They seem to think there's no permanent nerve damage; a miracle considering what Illya's body went through. His muscle development was a saving grace, and – He doesn't know what else. Perhaps there's some charm in that worn gold medallion that Illya sometimes wears. Perhaps he has an old Ukrainian babushka watching over him and praying for him. Whatever it is, the doctors and physiotherapists keep saying that they hope he'll recover full function.

He stands at the butcher's counter looking at the platters of meat laid out there, raw, impossibly red, moist and thick. Those are muscles. That's what Illya had built up in his shoulders, in his gymnast's physique, to save himself when he fell. That's what held him for all that time. It's incredible to think of those bundles of long protein fibres holding him, not snapping one by one. He must have been held up only by muscle and skin and tendons and nerves, all working together to keep his arms attached to his body. The human body seems like a miracle.

'Did you want something, sir?'

He looks up, startled. He's been standing there in a dream, one hand on the shopping cart, just gazing at the meat like a lunatic.

'Uh – yeah,' he says. 'I'll – ' He stares at the meat a little longer. Suddenly he doesn't feel quite like eating it, but he knows the feeling will pass, and Illya needs protein. 'I'll have a couple of pounds of ground beef, and two of those tenderloin steaks, please.'

He watches the man pick up those limp, dead pieces of meat and wrap them in greaseproof paper. He thinks of how he saw Illya when he first found him, hanging limply from the hook in the ceiling, a filthy cloth tied over his eyes, pale lips moving as he sang wavering, incoherent words. He remembers the white shirt discoloured with long patches of dried sweat at the armpits, and the stench that came from him, that thick scent of shit. There had been flies buzzing about him as if he were already dead, and if it hadn't been for the singing he might have thought Illya was dead, because he was pale as death, still as death.

'Hey,' the man at the counter says, and Napoleon focusses again, and takes the meat he's handing over.

'Sorry,' he says, flashing one of his notoriously charming smiles. 'Sorry. I guess I'm in another world today. Not enough sleep.'

He puts the two packages in the cart, feeling the limp weight of them. There's a lot of weight in meat. A lot of weight in a human body, even one as compact as Illya. Illya is deceptively weighty due to his muscle; or at least, he was. He's lost so much muscle mass, and is only now starting to build it up again. There was a lot of weight hanging from his two wrists, from his wrenched shoulders.

He looks at the meat on the counter and thinks, _that was thigh, that was back, that was ribs…_ He sees Illya in pieces, made of meat, deconstructed by the most precise of forensic pathologists. It makes him sick to think about it.

He breathes in hard. It's stupid to have thoughts like this. It's Illya who has the recurring thoughts and the flashbacks. But of course trauma isn't Illya's special privilege. Napoleon cares for Illya, cares more deeply than he had realised at the time. He had spent days afraid he was dead, and then he had found him, and he had still been afraid. He realises now that he had still been afraid that Illya was going to die. He was afraid that the shock and stress of the injury would carry him off. It had only been when he'd got him through the doors of U.N.C.L.E. that he'd really begun to relax, that he'd had the first proper sleep he'd had in days, that he'd trusted that Illya would be okay. Maybe it's because Illya is recovering that he's finally allowing himself to process the horror.

He stands looking at the groceries in the cart. He's not sure he can focus to do the rest of the shopping, but Illya is relying on him getting back. He wouldn't go in that pool alone, would he? He wouldn't do anything really stupid?

He moves around the aisles, picking things off the shelves. He finds himself at the checkout with an odd assortment of things, but it's food, at least. He has the basics, and a few more treats than the U.N.C.L.E. dietician would recommend. He pays and lumps everything in the car, pushing the chilled items together in the cold box he keeps in the trunk, and then he drives a few miles out of town, finds a quiet place by the side of the road, and parks the car.

The forest is empty and almost silent, the trees still under the hot sun. Maybe there are deer somewhere, or squirrels hiding from the midday sun, but there's no evidence of them. In the autumn this place will be a riot of gold and crimson, and people will come from all over to take in the fall colours. Now it seems like there's nothing in the world but him and the trees and the sky.

He walks a couple of dozen yards into the trees, and then he sits, back against the bole of a tall maple, staring past the other trunks and the sparse undergrowth and the mat of old, dead leaves. He thinks of that slab of dead muscle under the glass of the butcher's counter, inert and still. He thinks of Illya, of the muscle on his bones, red and alive and strong. This has been such a long, long journey. He's looked after Illya before, just as Illya has looked after him, but never for this long. This was almost like having a baby. Dressing him, wiping him, feeding him, waking with him through the night. But Illya is no baby. How awful it had been to watch him while he was so helpless and in so much pain. How awful it had been to be on the outside of all of that, and not be able to apply some magic spell to stop the pain.

He lies back and looks up through the clean green leaves at the patches of blue sky above. The colour of the light filtering through those leaves is beautiful. People are fools to only crowd here in the fall, but he's glad of their absence.

'I should think you could do with a bit of counselling too, Mr Solo,' Waverly had said in an off-hand way to him not long before they had come away here.

Napoleon had laughed and picked up the reports he had been going through, and gone back to the office. Maybe Waverly was right, though. Maybe when you got to the point of seeing your partner laid out in pieces of meat on a butcher's counter it was time to consider counselling.

((O))

'It went all right?' he asks Illya, back at the house.

They're both lying on sun loungers, a low table between them with drinks on it, and the sun is steady and high and moving towards the west. It's good to see a little of the muscle definition returning to Illya's chest, some to his arms. His legs never quite lost that definition, and his stomach is stronger than ever due to his using those muscles every time he wanted to sit up or lie down without using his arms.

When Napoleon had got back from the store he had found Illya here, lying on the lounger in open shirt and shorts, his skin golden with tan and the golden hairs glinting in the sun. He had been fast asleep, and Napoleon had just stood there watching him for a moment, before turning back into the house to sort out the groceries, feeling thankful that it was he who had come back to find Illya so vulnerable, not a Thrushie. Of course, a Thrushie wouldn't have known the combination for the gate or how to deactivate the electric fence, but that doesn't mean they couldn't get in somehow.

'It went all right,' Illya says. He turns his head a little stiffly to look at Napoleon. His eyes are as blue as the pool, and they sparkle as he smiles. His whole face seems to glow. 'It always goes all right now. You know that.'

'But they keep coming to see you,' Napoleon reminds him.

Illya sighs. 'They keep coming to see me,' he nods. There's a little shadow in his eyes now. 'Those boxes they have to tick off. They want the nightmares to go away. _I_ want the nightmares to go away.'

'They will, in the end,' Napoleon says.

Either they will, or Illya will stop admitting to them. Either way, he'll probably be fit enough to get signed off.

'I've been wondering about getting a little counselling myself,' Napoleon says idly, as idly as Waverly had suggested it in the first place.

Illya's eyes narrow. He knows Napoleon well enough to know the insouciance in this case means he's deadly serious. He's looking so intently into Napoleon's face that he begins to blush.

'What's up, Napoleon?' he asks.

Napoleon shrugs. He takes a sip of his drink and puts it down again, and wipes his lip.

'I guess this has all been a strain on me too,' he says. 'I had an odd moment at the meat counter. I saw all those pieces of meat, and saw it as you, chopped up into pieces and laid out there. It was – '

He trails off. _Horrendous_ , he wants to say. But it sounds so silly.

Illya is very quiet. Then he says, distantly, reflectively, 'When I was hanging in that place, when I was completely out of it, I had the strangest – I don't know. Hallucination, I suppose you would call it. My mind wandering. I saw myself taken apart. Not like a butcher would take you apart. More like a doll that connects at the joints. I was taken apart and put neatly into many little boxes.'

'Hallucination,' Napoleon murmurs.

It's hard to imagine, to put himself entirely in Illya's place. It's hard to imagine such unending pain. It's a miracle that Illya is sane at all.

'Hallucination, of course,' Illya agrees. 'A waking dream, of sorts. At times I wasn't sure if I were awake or asleep. It was a peculiar kind of hell.'

'I bought steaks for dinner, but I think I'd rather make something with the ground beef,' Napoleon says, needing to change the subject. 'If you don't mind.'

'I don't mind,' Illya says easily. 'My arms are tired. It would be good to have something I don't need to cut.'

'I'll make something I can leave to simmer,' Napoleon decides. 'Then while it's cooking I'll rub your shoulders and back.'

'That would be nice.'

Illya sits there with his eyes on the water of a pool for a little while. It's obvious that he's thinking. Then he says, 'Maybe you should get a little counselling. It can't hurt.'

It feels like a blessing, as if Illya understands.

'Maybe I will,' Napoleon says.

((O))

Napoleon doesn't go for an U.N.C.L.E. therapist. Sometimes it feels better to be able to speak honestly with someone, and that isn't always possible with a psychiatrist who works for his employer. So when they're back in New York City and Illya is back with his own U.N.C.L.E. mental and physical therapy regimes, Napoleon seeks out someone private and discreet.

'You fell in love with him after you got home from Belgium, then?' the woman asks him softly from the darkness of the room. It's the kind of place that would drive Illya mad, dripping with wall hangings, scarves thrown over lights to make them dim, joss sticks burning in holders, a picture of Buddha torn from a magazine and pinned to the wall next to a picture of a blond-haired Jesus in a white robe and another of Hindus on the banks of the Ganges. The recommendation is one that Napoleon trusts, though, and so he trusts this woman.

'Yes,' he says. He clears his throat a little, takes a sip of the herbal tea she has made, and says, 'Yes, after we got home. I suppose – Maybe I've loved him for a long time, but – '

'Loving someone isn't being in love,' she replies. 'We love our mothers, our friends, but we don't want to – '

'To fuck them,' Napoleon says, and he laughs quietly. 'No, I don't want to fuck my friends. I certainly don't want to do that with my mother. But he – I don't know. I hadn't ever wanted to fuck him either. Not really. I'd always been able to appreciate how beautiful he was. That was the first thing that struck me, the first time I walked into a room and he was there. I was amazed at how perfect he was, perfectly sized, perfect golden hair, perfect blue eyes. Those cheekbones… Maybe in those early days I wondered what it would be like to fuck him, in that abstract way you do sometimes with a stranger. But then I got to know him, and that died away. I stopped thinking about it. But we were thrown together so closely after we got back from Belgium.'

Washing Illya in the shower, bringing food to his mouth, helping him with the toilet, helping him change in and out of clothes. Sitting with him in the night when he woke in pain, watching him become soft and easy with the painkillers in his blood, hearing him say things he would never say with a clear head. Any last barriers between them had been torn down utterly during that time.

He comes back to the room he's in, blushing slightly as he thinks about what he's just said in front of this woman. He's never talked to anyone about how he feels about Illya, not a single person outside of the relationship. He's never verbalised how perfect Illya is to him, even to Illya himself. Illya would baulk at such ridiculous sentiment. So he almost always talks about him irreverently, running him down, making off-hand comments, and Illya does the same back to him. But really, Illya is in possession of everything he's ever looked for in a man or a woman. Those eyes, that hair like strands of spun gold, the strength and slimness of him, the intelligent mind.

'He sounds precious. Is it really surprising that you're reacting like this to the thought of losing him?' the woman asks him.

'I suppose not,' Napoleon muses. 'But – ' He shakes his head. 'I guess it's surprising that it's coming out now. I don't see why it's coming out now.'

'Well, you've been focussing all this time on looking after him, haven't you?' she asks. 'You've told me about how much you've been doing for him. Feeding him, cleaning him, dressing him. That's a lot, Napoleon. You can see that, can't you? Your time has been filled up with the routine day to day care of a man who can't use his arms. And now he's getting better, and you can stop focussing so intensely on the care of him, and start thinking about other things.'

'Thinking,' he murmurs. 'It feels more like haunting.'

She sits up a little straighter in her chair. 'What exactly is haunting you, Napoleon?'

He breathes out. It's good it's so dark in this room.

'Finding him hanging there,' he says.

'You thought he was dead?'

He shakes his head. 'No. No, not dead. I could tell he wasn't dead because he was singing.'

'He was _singing_?' she echoes.

'He was – I suppose he was delirious. He was singing the Russian national anthem, after a fashion. It wasn't singing as any West End performer would describe it. He was too tired, too dry, too – too far gone. It was a weird sound...'

'And that haunts you?'

He huffs a little laugh. 'I suppose it does. I remember the sound of it. Sometimes when I'm lying in bed and I can't sleep I remember walking into that room and finding him hanging there, singing, and it's as if I can hear his voice coming from another room. Then the whole thing comes back. The smell of him. He'd – ahem – He'd soiled himself, and it was a warm day. There was a powerful smell in that room.'

'That's a strong taboo,' the woman says quietly.

'Yes, it was hard for him.'

'And for you, too,' she says perceptively.

He grimaces. Yes, it was hard. He supposes he discounts that. He remembers getting Illya down, and the smell of shit billowing around him. He remembers peeling off his clothes and cleaning him as if he were cleaning a baby in a filthy diaper. That is a taboo, to touch another man like that, even your best friend. Definitely your best friend. That had been their first real intimacy, laying him on the floor and peeling off his clothes and gently cleansing his skin. The wrong kind of intimacy. It wasn't how he would have wanted to be introduced to the delicate beauty of Illya's genitals. Sometimes now when he unfastens and pulls off Illya's clothes he remembers kneeling on the floor in the château doing that, and for a moment his mind is confused between the weeks he's spent as his carer and the parallel weeks for which he has been his lover.

'It wasn't fun,' he says. 'I hadn't developed those feelings for him yet, but maybe that made it harder. Illya is such an independent person, a very self-reliant person. He's been out on his own since he began at university. It – Yeah, I guess you could say it broke some taboos, cleaning him up after that. We kept on breaking them, of course, because I had to look after him until his arms were strong enough for him to do things himself, but that was – ' He laughs a little. 'That was a scene of carnage.'

'And you were still afraid he might die?'

His laugh is a brittle thing. 'Not consciously, I think, but yes, I was afraid he'd die. He was dehydrated. He started going into shock. Shaking. He was so pale. He'd gone a long time without food or water, under the stress of agonising pain. I couldn't take him to a hospital, so I had to take him back to the hotel and look after him myself.'

'Do you understand, Napoleon, how much of a strain that must have been on you?' she asks him softly. 'You were always very close to him, weren't you?'

'Always,' he echoes. 'Partners have to be closer than brothers.'

'More like lovers?' she suggests, and he laughs.

'More like lovers, but without the sex, at least at that point.'

'And you feel some confusion over the sex coming into it, don't you?'

He moves his shoulders uncomfortably.

'I've always been open minded,' he says. 'I can't pretend my entire sexual history has been limited to women. Some people would say I'm a hedonist, and perhaps I am, because I follow what will give me pleasure, and sometimes that's a woman, sometimes that's a man.'

'But society doesn't view the two equally.'

'No,' he says, examining his fingernails, and then laying his hands down again. 'No, society does not. So I've fucked men and I've fucked women, but there have been a lot more women, and all my serious relationships have fallen on that side of the fence. There's too much complication, with a man. Too much skulking around, hiding. There's enough of that just for casual sex. Making rendezvous in public toilets or bars. It's a complication that's often not worth it. But with Illya – '

'With Illya?' she asks.

He laughs, feeling heat in his cheeks again. 'Now, Miss Lopez, I want you to promise not to laugh at me.'

She gives her own little smile in the semi-darkness. Her face is so calm, and the room is warm from late summer sunshine and full of the scent from those burning joss sticks. If he didn't feel so self conscious, if he didn't feel the importance of what he's saying, he could fall asleep in a room like this.

'I'm not here to laugh at you, Napoleon. That's the point of your being here.'

'Well,' he says. He takes in breath, then says, 'Illya – I feel like he's my soulmate. It's something I've never felt with another man. I haven't really felt it with another woman, although I've had my share of serious relationships. I know it sounds like I've been reading teen magazines, but Illya completes something in me that I hadn't realised was missing. So I – I do think that he's my soulmate.' He shifts uneasily on his seat, fiddling with the cord edge of the cushion. 'For a man to be my soulmate – Well, that digs up a lot of problems, doesn't it? Everyone would be delighted if Illya were a woman. Mom would be planning the wedding already. My friends would be clapping me on the back. They'd be asking if we just want to have boys, or a boy and then a girl, and if we were going to move to the suburbs, and had we thought of getting a dog. With Illya – ' He sighs. 'With Illya, we're going to have to hide this for the rest of our lives.'

'Yes, I suppose you are,' she says plainly. 'It's not right, and I'm sorry, but I suppose you are. But that doesn't make your love any the less. If anything, it shows how deep it is. If you're willing to take this very difficult path, it must be a very deep love.'

He smiles, leaning against the chair back, thinking of Illya. He thinks of how he has been there at his side for so long, how he is such a constant in the varied, wild life he leaves.

'The chance of one of us dying in our job is quite high,' he says.

'It must be,' she agrees. 'But that won't stop you loving him.'

'No,' he says.

No, it won't stop him loving him. Maybe it will make him love him all the more. All of those fears, those falling feelings, those flashes of seeing Illya hanging again, the thought of him hanging like a side of meat in an abattoir; they all make sense. Of course he's afraid of Illya dying, scared for his future, haunted by his past. It sets a determination in him to watch over him all the more carefully, to prevent such a terrible thing from happening. Somehow, they will both make it through alive.

((O))

The leaves in the parks are curling into brown cocoons and scattering over the paths. Every time Illya's feet thud down a leaf crisps beneath his sole. It's good to feel this sudden breath of cold air in the city. It feels as though it's been warm for so long. It's hard to suffer pain through a heatwave. It was hot when they hung him up from that ballroom ceiling. It was hot when Napoleon got him down. It was hotter still when he got back to New York, and the heat crept on, day by day, until it felt as if every crevice of the city had been heated through. But today there is a glinting sheen of frost on the paths. It will all melt away as the sun rises further, but right now the grass is sparkling and the dying leaves are sparkling, and he has to watch carefully as he jogs because a foot in the wrong place could mean a slip, and the last thing he wants to do is fall and throw out a hand to save himself.

It's so good to be running, though. He's been running every morning for a week, and although the thudding jars through his shoulders, the pain is bearable. It's good to be able to force his body back up to higher levels of fitness, to feel the burn in his lungs as he pulls in chill air, to feel the release of adrenaline pushing through muscles and driving him onwards. He's very careful not to trip. When he comes to those places where the path winds through natural rock formations, up or down steps, he stops running and walks, very carefully. He can't bear the thought of falling, even if his shoulders are so much better. A jolt like that is still painful. But it's a blessing to be able to run.

He remembers what it was like to hang from that ceiling, but he doesn't think about it all the time. He'll never forget that feeling, and perhaps it will always be a little, buried fear for him that something like that will happen again. But the nightmares have largely died away and Psych are happy with him now. He has talked out everything through the counselling, and it feels like a tired, stale tale at last. Napoleon has been through his own few sessions, and Illya can see the change in him in the way he acts around his partner. He doesn't have that sense of hovering any more, that feeling as if he's waiting for something to happen, for Illya to break apart. It's good to feel like he's back among the sane, as if both of them are back among the sane. If only he can get those last remnants of pain away, strengthen those muscles and get his arms fully functional, perhaps they'll let him back on duty. He's tired of staying in the office while Napoleon is out roaming the world. He hungers for travel and excitement.

He finishes his turn around the park and jogs back onto the streets outside, continuing his run until he's in the East Twenties and passing the familiar brownstones and small shops. He turns in at the tailor shop and steps inside, sweating but hardly out of breath. He feels fit again, at last, and it's so good.

'Good morning, Mr Kuryakin. Your car broke down, huh?' Del Floria asks him, eyeing his running gear. 'Well, it gives you a glow, anyway.'

'Good morning,' Illya replies, but he doesn't tarry in the shop. He steps into the changing cubicle and listens for the hiss of the steam press, then goes through into U.N.C.L.E. reception.

'Good morning, Olivia,' he says to the woman behind the desk, and accepts his badge and moves on into the bowels of U.N.C.L.E..

He makes straight for the gym, not intending to exercise, but to make use of the showers. He strips off his sweaty running clothes and throws them into a locker, then steps into the open, white-tiled showers and turns the water on. The heat is a beautiful blessing on the chilled surface of his skin. He was warm enough in the core of his body but his skin became cold when he slowed down on his jog back through the streets. He tips his head back and lets the powerful spray push down over his face, through his hair, and over his shoulders. It's perfect on his shoulders, the warmth just easing out the niggling pains there.

He moves his hands over the slipperiness of his skin, rubbing away sweat under the flowing water. He slops a hand carelessly over his balls and between his legs, because of course he was more sweaty there, and he wants to be clean. Then he opens his eyes and sees Napoleon, leaning against the wall opposite with a towel over his arm, just watching.

'Enjoying the floor show?' Illya asks archly.

'Very much so,' Napoleon purrs.

'Did you bring my suit?'

'Of course,' Napoleon nods. 'It's hanging from the top of your locker door.'

He holds out the towel, so Illya shuts off the water and steps away from the shower and begins to buff himself dry.

'The second act's pretty good too,' Napoleon comments. 'I'm glad I dragged myself out of bed to bring your clothes.'

'You need to be in anyway, and you promised you would bring my clothes,' Illya reminds him. He scuffs the towel over his hair and sends it into a wild mess.

'Maybe so, but all of a sudden I'd rather be back in bed, and I don't feel so inclined to give you your clothes, either. In fact, if I were the mayor I'd think I'd pass an ordinance forbidding all Kuryakins from wearing any clothes at all.'

'Despot,' Illya murmurs, and he goes over to the locker to grab his clothes before Napoleon can move them further away. 'Would you like to stop ogling me while I dress?'

'No, not really,' Napoleon shrugs, so Illya dresses, long-suffering, while Napoleon watches him.

'Come up to the office,' Napoleon says, and Illya doesn't argue. It's where he was headed, anyway. There's a mountain of paperwork on his desk, because he's doing more of Napoleon's while he's still on light duties, and Napoleon seems to delight in finding him ever more reports to file.

Napoleon locks the door with a click as soon as they're through, and draws down the little blind.

'You have some slides to show me?' Illya asks, but the projector isn't out on the desk, and the screen isn't rolled down.

'Nothing of the kind,' Napoleon tells him, and he grabs him, a hand holding each lapel of his jacket, and pulls him close. The kiss is long and hot and hard, and Napoleon's hands move from holding his jacket to caressing his neck, to untucking the recently tucked shirt and touching his still moist skin beneath, to slipping a finger under the waistband of his trousers.

'God, you smell good.'

'You have a fondness for coal tar soap? Illya asks.

'I have a fondness for you,' Napoleon replies, kissing him again, running his hands hard over the tautness of his belly, pressing his hips closer against Illya's hips so that he can feel the heat and hardness growing inside the fabric of his trousers.

'Here, Napoleon? Really?' Illya asks, but he's already breathless, already hardening himself, and the door is locked, and Napoleon is so, so – Oh. Napoleon's hand slipping beneath his waistband again, slipping into his underpants, fingers gripping hard around his cock and squeezing it with a beautiful possessiveness. He wants to thrust into that masterful grip. He can't stop himself.

'Here,' Napoleon growls, and buttons are coming undone, zippers slipping open, and Illya's freshly donned clothes are becoming a dishevelled mess because his tie is gone and his shirt flapping open, his trousers and underpants pushed down to his knees and Napoleon kneeling, tonguing, nipping, unleashing such a dizzying assault of sensation that Illya has to lean against the desk to support himself.

It is a hurried, private, shared jerking off, their hands coupled, hardness pressing against hardness, heat against heat, their mouths joined, fingers fumbling, until Napoleon comes, and Illya comes a moment later, and then they are leaning against one another, sticky, gasping, the sweat on Napoleon's forehead mingling with Illya's sweat and their breath soft against each other's lips.

'Shower, again?' Illya murmurs.

'I have wet-naps in the filing cabinet,' Napoleon tells him.

'You would.'

'I love you,' Napoleon says, and Illya laughs. He is breathless and must look ridiculous, shoes on, trousers around his ankles, his hand covered in a mixture of his and Napoleon's come. He doesn't care.

'I love you too,' he replies, kissing Napoleon softly again. 'Get those wipes, won't you? And don't leave them in the trash for the cleaning ladies to find.'

'I will get the wipes,' Napoleon says, kissing lightly at his lips and then stepping back. He looks just as dishevelled as Illya feels, his hair every-which-way and his shirt half undone, tie skewed around his neck, trousers bunched on his lower legs. He doesn't have to reach far to get them, and then they wipe down, and start to straighten out their hastily pushed aside clothing. Illya puts Napoleon's tie pin straight, and Napoleon returns the favour by turning down Illya's collar, and then he says, 'That was quite pleasant, but I think you should get back to work, Mr Kuryakin.'

'I think _you_ should get back to work, Mr Solo,' Illya returns archly, going to open the blind over the window and unlock the door. 'You have a lot to do.'

'Not with you acting as my beautiful secretary,' Napoleon says with some deep meaning in his tone.

'Oh, is _that_ what that was all about?' Illya asks. 'Is that how you always treat your secretaries, Mr Solo?'

'Only the blonds,' Napoleon replies. 'Now, why don't you run and get me some coffee, dear?'

If the glare Illya levels on him were real, Napoleon would likely freeze in his tracks. But there's humour underneath, of course. Still, Illya doesn't go for coffee. He seats himself behind his desk, dons his reading glasses, takes the cover off his typewriter, and winds a sheet of paper in. He's worked up to more and more hours of being able to type. At first just half an hour had left his arms trembling, had left him exhausted. Now at the end of the day his shoulders ache, but he can make it. In another few months, the doctors think, he will be able to pass the fitness test for active duty. He can't wait for those months to pass.

'You had better get that coffee,' Illya says, looking up over his glasses. 'I'm busy.'

Napoleon sighs and ruffles his hair and kisses him lightly on the top of the head.

'I'll go get the coffee,' he says. 'But only because you're blond.'

((O))

He is doing press-ups. It feels like an amazing thing. He can lie on his front on the floor and push himself up and lower himself down, and although his shoulders twinge, he's capable of doing it. He is only just starting to be able to use the parallel bars in the gym, but luckily a proficiency at gymnastics on the parallel bars isn't a requirement for agent's work. He can do everything he needs to do to get back on duty. He can climb a rope, climb a tree or a drainpipe. He can swing between loops for ten yards before he needs to drop. He can hold his gun steady and hit the centre of the target and reload and fire again without fumbling. He has passed his fitness test, and it's amazing.

What is more amazing is the slow creep of his life to meld into Napoleon's. Bit by bit, while he was recovering, various of his possessions found themselves making their way to Napoleon's apartment. Now something unspoken has been sealed. It's not just favourite records and clothes and a toothbrush that are in Napoleon's apartment. It's whole shelves of books, his favourite mug, then the armchair he particularly likes to sit in, then his typewriter and the entire box of jazz LPs. His mail has been redirected for weeks.

It's a strange, slow evolution from being a single man to what appears to be a permanent partnership. It's nothing that they can talk about outside the building. If they mention it to anyone else they use words like _convenient, saves on rent, just seemed easier._ It is convenient. It does save on rent. It is so much easier for them to come back to the same place together and eat at the same table and slip into the same bed at night. It's got to the point now that Illya has sold bits of furniture and moved the rest over here, and he walked out of the bare and echoing apartment a week ago and handed his keys back to the landlord. Now he's doing press-ups in his underwear in front of the sitting room fire, and Napoleon is sitting on the sofa with his feet up and a tumbler of whisky next to him, reading the newspaper, and they are like an odd species of married couple.

'Are you ever going to stop exercising and come sit with me?' Napoleon complains. He has been decorating the apartment for Christmas, and the whole place is glittering with coloured foil, and now he's sitting still, relaxing. All this time he's been waiting for Illya's attention.

Illya lowers himself to the carpet and rolls over, panting a little, flushed and damp with sweat.

'I need to be in shape,' he says.

'And you are in the most beautiful shape imaginable. If you weren't, you wouldn't have passed the fitness test. So take an evening off, and come and sit with me.'

He lies there, eyes on the ceiling, still trying to catch his breath.

'I ought to shower first,' he says.

'I'll shower with you,' Napoleon offers instantly, and Illya laughs.

'No, stay there. I'll shower, and I'll come back and spend time with you.'

Napoleon pouts a little. Illya turns his head sideways and catches the expression, just as Napoleon had meant him to.

'Come and shower with me,' he says, relenting. 'You can rub my shoulders.'

'That's not the only thing I'd like to rub,' Napoleon replies suggestively, folding his newspaper and tossing it to the end of the sofa.

'You can start with my shoulders and work your way down.'

' _That_ is a proposition I could never refuse.'

Napoleon folds himself off the sofa as Illya stands up. He kisses the nape of Illya's neck, where a little sweat is beaded, and Illya shivers. He can't stop himself shivering. Napoleon's touch sets him to shivering all over. He suddenly feels his near-nudity with extra force.

'Come on. Shower,' he says, suddenly eager, and he takes Napoleon by the hand.


End file.
